Farther Along

In 1911, the Church of God Reformation Movement's own publishing house in Anderson, Indiana, the Gospel Trumpet Company, printed a hymnal called Select Hymns for Christian Worship and General Gospel Service. Buried inside it, credited only as "Arr. B. E. W.", was a song that begins "Tempted and tried, we're oft made to wonder." Today nearly everyone who has heard it knows it by its refrain instead: Farther Along.

The initials point to Barney E. Warren, a Church of God minister credited with writing or arranging more than two thousand hymns over his lifetime and the movement's own principal early songwriter. But the credit did not hold. A Church of God preacher named William B. Stevens later heard the song on the radio, wrote to the publisher claiming authorship, and most hymnals printed since have carried his name instead. At least two other men have also been credited in various editions. Nobody has settled it, and this entry does not pretend to either. What is not disputed is where the song first appears in print: inside the movement's own hymnal, from its own press.

From there the song left the denomination almost entirely. The Flying Burrito Brothers put it on Burrito Deluxe in 1970. The Byrds named an entire 1971 album after it. Ike and Tina Turner's 1974 recording earned a Grammy nomination for Best Soul Gospel Performance. Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris sang it together on Trio in 1987. Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley and Sam Cooke all recorded it too. A hymn whose own authorship the Church of God could never pin down became, in the hands of country, soul and rock musicians who mostly never asked, one of the most recorded gospel songs America has.